


Forging Tribute

by Shatterpath



Series: First and Third [5]
Category: Agent Carter (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Feels, Gen, Origins of SHIELD, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-28
Updated: 2015-02-28
Packaged: 2018-03-15 14:00:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3449750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shatterpath/pseuds/Shatterpath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The humblest origins of SHIELD.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Forging Tribute

**Author's Note:**

> I have to admit that I have no idea where this idea sprang from and I was quite literally making this up as I went along. Also, this is some of my best work, I have to say.

Looking back, it really did boil down to being inevitable.

That didn't make the reality any easier.

Peggy wasn't proud of herself for slipping out of the embrace of the dying SSR while Thompson was away schmoozing, but he did not deserve one last chance to take potshots at her psyche. Regardless of what she did, he would react badly, say things that made him look worse than she did. Better a screaming phone call down the line than his embarrassing himself in front of the other agents… again.

It was hard to believe that just a few months ago they had all pulled together and been a team for those few, glorious hours. Now, the SSR was riddled with cracks, falling apart before their eyes as loyalties were divided and walls put up. As much as there was a part of Peggy mollified, even thrilled at how many of the other agents were drifting to her quietly stubborn work ethic, she hated watching it tear the agency apart. Hence her quietly packing up her desk and walking out without a word. She didn't want any of them to follow, even as she knew some of them would; and wasn't that a revelation in itself?

Angie was waiting with the car, drumming her fingers irritably on the passenger door even as Peggy arrived, lone box in hand. She'd given up sooner, unable to stomach Thompson's outrageous preening and boarishly mouthing off, growling at his disrespectful taunting that he knew she couldn't take it. That the SSR hadn't run smoothly since had caused the resentful cracks to widen all the faster and more noticeably. Peggy was well aware that whomever might show up on her doorstep would be as motivated by Angie's presence as her own. Possibly moreso.

"Thank you for the ride."

In lieu of a verbal reply, Angie made a conflicted face even as she yanked open the back door so the box could be placed within. Peggy flinched at the slam of the door and the way Angie stalked around the car to throw herself into the driver's seat. A flicker of movement at the door of the phone company made Peggy look over, trading a knowing nod with Daniel. His involvement in whatever the future held was a given as she was relieved to know she had another someone at her back. The details of this new phase of the intelligence life were still being worked out, as getting a serious, straight answer out of Howard was not unlike trying to herd cats. 

Carefully entering the car, Peggy looked over at Angie's scowling profile, watching as the pretty face finally started to relax. "Glad you're out of there, Pegs. Sorry for being such a bitch."

Smiling warmly, relieved at the softening of the one person she'd come to rely on above all others, Peggy reached out to give her forearm a squeeze. "You can gloat, you know. About being right."

That made Angie laugh, her tension dissolving completely and when she smiled, it was once more the full-fledged enjoyment of life that warmed Peggy so. "I'll gloat later over drinks when I can torment Howard. In the meantime, let's get goin'. We've got a future to get to!"

Anticipation took the edge off disappointment as Peggy turned her back on the failing SSR, knowing she had done the only thing she could.

~ * ~* ~

"You sure, Peggy? You make the colors look good."

Between copious amounts of alcohol, an excellent meal courtesy of Jarvis and far too many hours of pouring their collective brains out on the how and what the hell they were doing, Peggy didn't have the energy to even be offended at Howard's mouthing off.

"Howard, the very notion of my strapping on the stars and stripes is a level of absurd that is excessive, even for you."

That her so very British accent was getting thicker and blurrier even as she berated her oldest friend made Daniel giggle nearly as much as Angie was.

"C'mon, English, you'd look great in tights and carrying a shield."

"Oh, the whole lot of you are mad."

Not too long ago, Peggy could have never bantered like this about Captain America's aborted legacy, lost to the ice and sea. But finally making the active effort to let him go had lightened Peggy and she knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Steve would want to her live on. To find happiness where she could, to wallow in humor and the presence of those she cared about.

"I'm not much of chorus line on my own, but me and Daniel could work on it, right?"

Caught up in Angie's laughter, Daniel posed as best he could while not bothering to stand in his awkward way. The bad pinup effort made Angie and Howard howl like mongrels and Peggy shook her head. Steve would have loved this, happily poking fun at his alter-ego right alongside them. Possibly drawing more of his lovely little drawings, possibly handing over the shield for Angie to vamp with.

The shield.

The sudden stillness in Peggy sobered the others, sharpening their curiosity past their silliness.

"What is it, Peg?"

Taking her seat beside Howard once again, Peggy snatched up a pencil and notepad, ripping off sheets full of notes of various levels of usefulness. In bold, oversized letters, she wrote 'SHIELD'. Mind racing, she grasped at exhausted, buzzed thoughts, determined to make sense of them.

Strategic. They could keep that from the SSR, for it still fit the job.

Division, for they needed to work more closely with the existing intelligence agencies of both this homeland as well as allies around the world.

Homeland. America were not be the lands of Peggy's birth, but her love for the place was sincere and something she would not walk away from.

Without a word, Angie plucked the pencil from Peggy's fingers and jotted down, Intervention. "Gives people a purpose, right? And stops problems before they start."

Showing the sensitivity that Peggy had come to rely on, Angie handed the pencil to Daniel, pushing the pad of paper over. After a moment of intense thinking, he added; Enforcement. "I for one, am tired of getting pushed around. If we play our cards right, we won't have to throw our weight around much, but we have to be prepared for that if it's necessary."

They all nodded in understanding of the grim reality of the statement, of the weight they all carried of lives lost, of skills brutally learned, of guns taking on the heat of their bodies where the metal lay close. 

Howard startled when Daniel repeated Angie's motion, handing over the pencil, pushing over the paper that bore three styles of writing now. He was the wild card, the loose cannon, the mad genius in their midst, wracked with guilts that shook him like the winter storms off the Atlantic. It was he that still clung the hardest to the loss of Captain America, of his friend lost, his body never found, no matter how much time and money Howard threw at the search. With a shaking hand, he traced the empty 'L', lost in his own thoughts and shadows for a long, long moment. Then, with a shaking hand, he completed the acronym, very deliberately and neatly writing out, Logistics.

Then he quirked a sad, cheeky grin and fixed the grammar with a comma and an 'and'.

Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.

Without a word, Peggy grabbed the half-empty bottle of bourbon and shakily poured a healthy dose to each of their glasses. There was a satisfying clink of glass as they raised their tumblers in a toast and the others looked to Peggy to say it, to become their new leader in thought as well as deed.

"To SHIELD," she intoned quietly, shakily, seriously, meeting each of their gazes in turn.

"To SHIELD," they said back, their tones echoing hers, and they all drank deep to their new beginning.


End file.
